The town-hall meeting was 75 minutes of tense exchanges between Chaffetz and residents from across the state. They were frustrated by the Utah Republican's refusal to investigate President Donald Trump's potential conflicts of interest. They doggedly pursued him for his initiatives to transfer or sell public lands. They questioned his position on immigration and refugees.

Earlier this morning I watched about 45 minutes of this 1.5 hour video.

And all I can say is that, yes, Rep. Jason Chaffee has bad ideas (selling off national parks, closing the dept of education, etc), but he was NOT the asshole in that room.

The asshole was the CROWD.

He stood there, took their shit, graciously allowed every single one of their interruptions, and answered every single question he was asked... even going so far as to offer followups for people who didn't feel their questions were answered adequately.

I don't agree with his positions, his politics, or his methods for reaching his goals, but he stood there on stage, in front of a brutally hostile audience, and honestly and openly and respectfully answered every one of their questions.

The audience was childish, unproductive, and - honestly - a bunch of total dicks.

Imagine what this town hall could have been like, if they had treated him with the same decorum and politeness that he treated them with.

This human mealworm whipsawed on Trump so fast that he established his word as basically mud. He's the chairman of the oversight committee, and he sat down with Trump even after Trump told him no discussions about oversight would happen. The only thing he responds to, it seems, is inchoate rage. Therefore, those who show him inchoate rage are PATRIOTS.

Jason Chaffetz is only the asshole in the room when he knows he's safe and protected. When his ass is in danger of kicking? Fuck yeah, you bet he's civl. This human whackamole needs to be re-elected by that crowd in 2018. Graciously taking their shit is what he needs to do to keep his fuckin' JOB.

Imagine what this town hall could have been like, if they had treated him with the same decorum and politeness that he treated them with.

He would have left with the idea that he's doing a good enough job representing his constituents that he need not fear for his life.

I'm with the crowd on this one. I want that little planarian to question everything he holds dear... because as far as I can tell, "everything" begins and ends with himself.

Except... he addresses several of those issues, and why he and Elijah Cummings have jointly chosen to investigate some things, not investigate others (yet), and the legal limitations of what the Joint Oversight Committee can actually do.

There were several people asking about Trump's tax returns, for example, and quoting Chaffetz before the election saying, "Everyone has to open their kimono and show everything, if they want to be President".

But the fact of the matter is, there is no legal requirement for the President to release his tax returns. And yeah, his answer becomes a mealy blowjob for Trump. But the point is that they do not have the power to compel him to do so. He laughs about it, and agrees with the crowd, but he and Cummings are powerless to do anything about it.

He would have left with the idea that he's doing a good enough job representing his constituents that he need not fear for his life.

This right here is why I made my comment.

Yelling incoherently at someone simply makes them stop listening, and prevents any possibility of discourse.

Chaffetz goes home from that event the Winner, because he kept his cool, and the audience failed to. Period. Nothing substantive is gained.

However, imagine this: On the stage are two chairs facing each other. Chaffetz points to someone with their hand raised to ask a question. They come up on stage, sit across from him, and ask their question into the microphone. He then takes the mic and responds directly to the person. Looking them in the eye, face to face, in conversation.

It would have changed the ENTIRE dynamic of the room. Instead of "us" being on stage and everyone else in the room being "them", the dynamic would have changed. It would have been "us on stage talking" while the room became listeners to their conversation.

THIS is how you change bad policy. Not by making pithy signs and screaming incoherently as a crowd.

Nope. Not buyin' it. You don't negotiate with liars, you don't accept the word of those that lack one. Chaffetz is motivated by fear and greed and you do not use gentle rhetoric where a cattleprod is called for.

Chaffetz’s Twitter feed doesn’t feature any curiosity about Trump’s numerous potential conflicts of interest. But the Utah congressman has been tweeting incessantly about how he is “outraged” by “arrogant” Obama using the national monument designation powers presidents have had since 1906.

I have no power over Jason Chaffetz other than paying whatever PAC wants to take him down in two years. Neither do you. And it warms the cockles of my heart to see a bunch of negro-hatin', whiskey-fearin', gay-bashin' Mormons tear him limb from limb and this high tea of intellectual convergence you picture?

Naaah. Watching Republicans tear Republicans limb from limb is the kind of joy I haven't experienced since John Boehner ran screaming.

Why is this so hard to understand? Yelling at the guy accomplishes nothing, and actually hurts your cause, because he gets to walk away the "winner", for keeping his cool in the face of what was basically a riot.

The guy completely leveled the playing field. He asked questions from random people in the crowd, not a select few plants. He gave them the opportunity to ask followup questions if they were not satisfied with his response. He showed up, in person, and answered questions live for an hour and a half. There were multiple media outlets there videoing the entire event. You couldn't have asked for a better set up to take down one of the leading moron Republicans in the party.

Any minimally-informed voter could have absolutely shredded Chaffetz on basically ANYTHING. The guy is a mental midget. All they needed to do, for example, is let the "woman in red" speak (who asked the pointed questions about Trump's tax returns), and Chaffetz would have had to defend his indefensible position. There would be video of him either incriminating himself, outright lying, or calling out Trump. On video. To be shared globally.

Instead, the crowd starts shouting again, drowning out the followup question, and his answer, so he gets off scot-free with a mealymouthed bit of wishy-washyness.

Again. Yelling at these shitwits is not the winning strategy, and will always lead to the Republicans looking composed and professional, and their detractors looking like frothing loons.

will always lead to the Republicans looking composed and professional, and their detractors looking like frothing loons.

Chaffetz has calmly and professionally investigated Clinton's email server 33 times. He has sworn to continue to do so even past inauguration. Meanwhile he's sucking the cock of a president who goes on capslock twitter rants in the middle of the night and treats federal appellate judges as if they were Rosie O'Donnell. You keep asserting that calmness and poise win debates as if it were true and you have never once offered a single reason or example as to why it would possibly be.

He asked questions from random people in the crowd, not a select few plants. He gave them the opportunity to ask followup questions if they were not satisfied with his response. He showed up, in person, and answered questions live for an hour and a half.

Somehow you got the idea that the purpose of this meeting was to get answers from Jason Chaffetz. It wasn't. The purpose of this meeting, to those who attended it, was to express vituperative hatred and displeasure at the previous actions of Jason Chaffetz. You think the walking sphincter is going to moderate his behavior as the result of a 90 minute Q&A? 'cuz you have no reason to think that. On the other hand, attempting to moderate his behavior through convincing him he might just get run over on the way home hasn't been tried yet. Thus, a surly crew of mormons.

Nothing wrong with frothing loons... particularly when several hundred of them show up to demonstrate the likelihood of Chaffetz' re-election.

Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings, they did it by killing all those who opposed them.

I'm like so baffled by this comment that I barely know how to respond.

This guy gets asked by the crowd why he's not doing what he's promised, gives bad and unsatisfying answers, and gets booed for giving bad and unsatisfying answers.

You don't think that maybe there's some merit to the anger behind the crowd at all? That maybe the reason they're angry is because they don't feel represented in a system that functions solely based on the feeling that the people's interests are being represented? Or that maybe it's something that might seem a bit rude from the outside but the people he represents have seen every side of this guy for at least this election cycle if not much much longer?

Its like the attitude that people get towards trump. My mechanic had the news on when I went to pick up my car, and he looked at me and went "man everyone is going after trump these days, like gosh give him a chance."

He's the goddamn president, he has control of Congress and will eventually have the judiciary. He has more power than any single American citizen could possibly ever have. Chaffetz has more power than any person protesting there.

I'm not exactly sympathetic to powerful people in a representative democracy being booed because their constituents don't feel like their interests are being represented. I'm not sympathetic because that's a stupid idea.

Again, I totally agree with the the crowd's opinion. I am simply arguing their method.

Their method may have been momentarily mildly satisfying - yelling often makes you feel good in the moment, and then leads to almost instant regret - but what did it accomplish?

KB's opinion is that their yelling let Chaffetz know in no uncertain terms that his constituency was displeased with his work. (Note: Today he actually said that most of the people in that room were bussed in, and weren't actually Utahns at all. Idiot.)

However a room full of people losing their shit isn't going to change his mind. He's just going to think they are a random group of loonies. (Which is exactly what he said today.)

Be pissed with him. That's fine.

But when he gives you the opportunity to ask him direct questions, face to face, on camera, I just think that opportunity is better used being polite and asking high quality questions, rather than raving like a bunch of loonies.

I guess I just see this election and the clear partisan lines that come up as evidence that none of this shit is going to change anyone's mind.

Being polite is nice when there's an honest willingness to change your mind, but the guy isn't going to suddenly give a better answer because people say please rather than fuck you. He's got his lines, he's got the positions he's going to vote on. You think he's going to deviate from that because people were nice?

We've been past that point for so long that I almost pine for the days when we thought it was crazy that people ganged up on Bush Jr. For his pronunciation. I've got enough whinging responses on reddit with people calling for the death of any number of political opponents or people still bringing up Hillary that I can't fucking stand it any longer.

I have to echo kb on this one. Who gives a fuck about the shitkicker's feelings? He's a terrible person who brings terrible things into the world. Word is that he threatened to expose Comey for "covering up" the email "scandal" if he didn't write the infamous letter. This guy is the last person in the country who should be in charge of ethics and oversight, and I commend anyone for being a prick to him. Everyone deserves a voice, but when you use that voice for pure evil, you surrender it to the spiteful masses. Fuck him right in the ear.

And now, of course, without disclosing evidence, he claims that many attendees were paid agitators from out of district. who were "brought in". I don't doubt that some people may have been out of district, but that is a huge fuck you to many of his constituents.

“That’s not what the average Utahn is like.” He forgets that Trump was the popular vote loser there. 45% voted for him and I am not sure how that happened since Trump is religiously ignorant/intolerant and was not supported by Mormon Romney (and then made a very public/non-pious display of humiliating him).